Pallets are said to move the world. Eighty percent of commerce ships on pallets. The pallet industry is estimated at greater than $30 B worldwide. More than 500 million pallets are manufactured in the US each year, with 1.8 billion pallets in service in the US alone.
Pallets can be made from various materials, however wood pallets currently comprise about 80% of the market. More than 40% of worldwide hardwood lumber currently goes toward the manufacturing of wood pallets. Other materials used for pallet manufacturing include plastic, metal and corrugated paperboard.
Recent regulations regarding infestation and contamination are creating a surge in interest and use of non-wood pallet alternatives. A small, but fast growing segment is the use of corrugated paperboard pallets. Many desire to replace conventional wooden pallets with corrugated pallets for reducing costs, increasing ability to recycle, lowering pallet weight, eliminating product contamination, reducing pallet storage volume and reducing pallet related injuries.
Many different designs of corrugated paperboard pallets have been developed to date. Despite the potential advantages of corrugated pallets, many have suffered from several different deficiencies. These deficiencies include low strength and stiffness, high use of corrugated paperboard, resulting in higher material costs, warehouse space, assembly labor and freight costs. The inherent inability to readily produce and distribute corrugated pallets in sufficiently high volume has also been a critical factor in the commercial failures of almost all prior art corrugated paperboard pallets.
Corrugated skids, i.e. corrugated pallets without a bottom deck, are quite desirable because they can be made very lightweight and also because they do not waste material for a bottom deck that is easily damaged without contributing to supporting a load above the floor. They also lack sidewalls that are also easily damaged in box type corrugated pallets. Corrugated skids are also able to be moved with stacker type forklifts used in many parts of the world because of a lack of bottom deck. Corrugated skids can be constructed of a top deck with glued on supports or by two pieces with support from integral folded ribs. Corrugated skids with glued on supports have a tendency for the supports to become loose, in addition to requiring much more material and assembly costs. Corrugated skids with integral folded ribs are more desirable. Unfortunately, these types of skids can sometimes encounter deviation of the support ribs from vertical, mostly from blank shifting during abusive handling. Deviation from the vertical orientation of the support ribs can reduce the load carrying capability as well as stability of the shipped load of goods.
Accordingly, a new corrugated skid is needed that has folded ribs integral with the deck, and also providing an increased structural integrity to maintain the support ribs in vertical orientation for supporting the load. Such a skid would be more durable for lifting, sliding and fork impacts. The light weight of such a novel skid would greatly reduce the shipping costs of goods, particularly in the case of air shipments, at an overall cost significantly less than the use of conventional pallets and skids, even those made of corrugated material. Ideally, such a novel skid could be shipped to a user in the form of stacks of flat blanks that could be rapidly assembled as needed at the point of use without the need for large volumes of storage space to accommodate assembled pallets or skids.